Week 1 Fall Training

As mentioned before I am following the Daniels Plan for my fall goals this year, graciously shared with me by Nicole. While I wasn't able to complete one of the runs due to closing 4 nights in a row at work (that's 4 nights of 1-2am bedtimes followed by 5-6am alarm clock mornings) I don't think that it was such a bad thing. Jumping from 30ish km weeks lately to a 54km week might not have been a good idea, especially with being ill the week before. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get to the gym either as not only was work busy but so was life. Oh well, I'm not going to beat myself up over it.

Monday - rest
Tuesday - 10K easy pace. I thought that our starting easy pace was 6:12/km. Turns out it was 6:00/km. Good thing that I figured out that I had not received the updated paces before Wednesdays speed work!
Wednesday - 10k run with 4x4 min Tpace (4:52) w/ 3 min recoveries. I like to try to do some speed work on the treadmill to keep me accountable but I could never stomach 10K on it so I decided to run to the gym, do the speed work on the TM there and then run home. It worked out well and I'll probably try it again this coming week. As long as we don't get the fore casted rain that is.
Thursday -8K easy pace with Patty.
Friday - supposed to be 8k easy pace. Was really me hitting the snooze button for 90 minutes. Oops.
Saturday - 18K easy run with Patty & Emma. It was hot & muggy and I found it hard to breath the first few kms. I eventually found my groove and enjoyed the rest of our time out there.
Sunday - rest

Next Saturday our long runs start incorporating Tpace. I'm both excited and scared. Wish us luck!!

Random photo, my son Kyle going to his grad dinner on Friday night. They had prom last month. Thank God I have two boys, I can't even imagine the expense that the parents of daughters had with these two functions!!

Georgina 10 Miler

Sutton ON

Bib # 125

Chip time: 1:28:11

Official time 1:28:12

Pace 8:50/mile

Place 30/55

Gender Place 12/31

Category Place 4/9

 

It's taken me a little bit to get around to writing this recap, I've been super busy with work and family life the past week.....

 

Normally I try to live by the rule that you don't register for a race that will take you less time to run than it will to drive to, but Patty wanted to run the Georgina 10 miler for her birthday so I said that I would join her. I don't really know the northern part of the GTA (at all), but figured how bad could it be......

 

I hooked up with Patty at 6am and we made our way out to Sutton after I gave her the running skirt that I had bought her for her bday. FYI, she is lucky that I left buying her gift until the last minute or else I would have kept it for myself and gotten her something else! Once I got it home I tried the skirt on and it looked super cute on me! :oD We arrived in Sutton around 7:30am, got our bibs and old school Velcro ankle timing chips and waited around to meet up with Patty's friend Erin. There didn't seem to be many people out running this race but I was able to do some serious people watching in the small crowd any way. The first person who caught my eye was a woman wearing jean shorts and a cotton t-shirt. We thought she may be a 5K walker. Then I spied a young guy in a pair of Coors Light swimming trunks doing high leg kicks for warm up. And then along came the pièce de résistance ..... another young man in swimming trunks but this one had a mullet! Business in front, party in the back, yeehaw! At about 7:55 we noticed that the crowd had still not made it's way to the starting line.....Hey! Where was the starting line anyway?!?! Ten minutes later a woman got on the loud speaker and decided to get this party started with a little zumba. Um, maybe we should skip the zumba and get the race started seeing as it's already late? No? Ok, what do I know any way? Finally the zumba ended and we made our way to the starting area. A driveway with a mat laying across it. Way to stand out!! A lady then came up and told us that she was a volunteer with the police department and would it be ok if she took our photographs? This race was really going all out!!! Finally around 8:20 two girls from Sportstats yelled go and apparently the race started. Getting permits to close the roads must not have been in the race budget (among many, many other things) so for safety we mainly ran on the sidewalks during the downtown portion of the run. The first of 4 water stations quickly came upon us but seeing as we had pretty much just started the race we declined. I did take the time to notice that they were serving both water & Gatorade which I was happy to see because I didn't bother to bring a gel with me. Normally I wouldn't take one for a race this distance but after running a hard 5K race the weekend before and being sick all week I wasn't sure how I'd be feeling later on in this race. Eventually we turned toward the lake and made our way into the 'boonies'. I was quickly noticing that running a race this small was very hard on the race mojo. I literally felt like I was only running a hard long run and to be honest I wasn't enjoying it. There were times where you didn't see any other runners at all and barely any spectators. The second water table came up and I thought I might like some Gatorade but they only had water. Boo. Why would they have it at the first station and not this one? Oh well. On we ran occasionally chatting and both feeling the effects of the Moon in June the weekend before. The scenery was very nice on this route, I will give them a plus here. The lake was beautiful and the homes along there were very nice. Soon enough the third water station was coming up and I was starting to find that running a 5:30/km pace was feeling much harder than it should be. Normally 5:30/km is comfortable for me to hold, but during this run my legs were very heavy. Again I looked for Gatorade and again I didn't see any and I was starting to regret not bringing a gel with me. Shortly after this water station we realized that we had taken a wrong turn. Where we should have turned into a park we had stayed on the road. Thankfully I noticed that the woman that had been running in front of us was no longer there before we had gone too far. We quickly turned back and Patty asked the woman who was standing on the corner with her kids why she didn't tell us that we went the wrong way. "Other people went that way too" she said. Turns out the whole lead pack missed the park as well and missed running a whole km of the route! Who was in charge of this race?!?! We eventually made our way up to a main road and started clicking down the final km's. Once again the race's inability to have any road closures made running the race a little dangerous. We ran along a busy road on the gravel shoulder while cars whizzed by at 80km/hr! At this point I could not wait for this race to be over! With one km to go we finally passed the last water station, fully stocked with Gatorade!! (It turns out that the Gatorade had been stolen from the middle two stations!!) Neither one of us wanted to bother with a  drink and just concentrated on finishing up. As we made our way down the final street mullet boy whizzed past us and his friend in the long sleeve shirt & tights (dude, aren't you roasting?!?!) told us that it was his first race. Damn youth! Off in the distance we could see the park and Erin (she finished 11th!!) was on the street corner cheering us in. We crossed the finishing line and both thought thank God that's over! We went and got our medals, snacks and race kits full of random stuff that I think that they may have gotten at Dollerama and laughed at the absurdity of this race. Then to top the day off the lady in the jean shorts went running by towards the finish line.

 

 

 

I'd probably have to mark this down as the most ghetto race that I've ever been involved in, and after the 2.5 hour drive home I am left praying that Patty finds something a little closer to home to run for her birthday next year!

 

 

Moon in June 5K





Burlington ON

Bib # 260

Chip time: 23:31

Official time 23:37

Pace 4:44

Place 77/752

Gender Place 13/457

Category Place 3/89



The Moon in June holds a special place in my heart. Not because my 5K PB was run there last year but because it was all of the Facebook status updates regarding it in 2011 that got me running. At that point in my life I was 40 and still looking for a way to fit some sort of fitness into my life other than my twice a day walks with the dog. I saw a few mentions of the local 5K race and I thought that I would love to get back into running, so with some advice from my friend Sarah I signed up for the Learn to Run clinic at the Running Room and the rest is history.

My goal going into the race this year was a 22:xx finishing time. I wasn't sure if I could do it and to be honest I was kind of nervous about it. 4:30kms are fast but I'd do my best. Then race day came and with two naps under my belt I realized that I was not feeling that great and 22:xx probably wouldn't happen. My new goal was to run my ass off and at least get a sub 25min time. That I figured was doable. I was meeting Patty & Emma at 8:30pm so around 8:15pm I peeled myself away from the movie Roadhouse which was on tv (my husband is amazed that I have never seen this movie before. Now I have seen half.) and headed downtown. As I drove there I started to notice that the peppers that were in the salad that I had for dinner were starting to repeat on me. Just like at ATB. AND I had on the same skirt as I had worn at ATB. Please don't let me have any gastro issues again I thought! I met the girls (and Patty's husband Greg who was running his first race ever) and we did a warm up run to Kelly's Bake Shop where we met up with friends, Sarah, Mari, Laura, Sabrina & Cam. I did not put two & two together as to who Cam was and it was a big joke when at the end of the night I secretly whispered to Sarah "Who the hell is this guy and why does he seem to know me?!". I'm not always the sharpest knife in the drawer. We had a quick picture taken with a few random people that I've never met before and headed over to the start line.

Photo courtesy of Mari. In the middle in their matchy matchy tops are Laura & Sabrina, Emma, me, Greg & Patty.

Patty and I made our way fairly close to the front as we were both hoping to age place. I came third in my AG last year but didn't realize it until the next day. Hint, if you want to age place get as close as you can to that start line. I did end up placing and the girl who came in behind me actually had a 2 second faster chip time but a slower official time. Snooze ya lose! The gun went off and I immediately lost Patty in the crowd. We blazed our way down Brant and onto Lakeshore where the spectators eventually fizzled out. *sad face* I tried not to pay too much attention to my Garmin and just ran as fast as I could without killing myself. 1KM done and 4:21 flashed up on my Garmin. I was feeling ok but should probably slow down. 2KM done and 4:43 flashed up and I was starting to get tired. I wasn't really thirsty but I let myself have a quick drink at the water station just to give my legs a rest. 3K beeped and 5:00 was showing on my watch. ARG stupid water break that I didn't need! Shortly after this there was a small turnaround and I spied Patty. Seeing her so close to me gave me a little extra pep and I told myself to just gut it out. I could do it. Only 2K left. Ten minutes. I could feel my legs getting heavy and I thought to myself that this was an exact copy of last years Moon in June. I came back up onto Brant and just kept the girl who was right ahead of me in my sights. I knew that I wouldn't be able to pass her but if I could just keep pace with her I'd be fine. 4K beeped and 4:53 came up. I was trying to do the math to figure out what my finishing time could be but my mind would only work on keeping my legs moving. The girl ahead of me sped up so I sped up, being pulled along by an invisible rope. I heard someone coming up behind me in what sounded like VFFs so I turned my head slightly expecting to see Patty blaze by. It wasn't Patty, but this girl did whiz by me. I could see the finish line ahead of me and did the old 1 1/2 times around the track. One time around the track. Half a lap around the track. Breaking the distance up in my head like that always helps. I saw my friend Nicky on the same corner as last year. She didn't see me, or maybe she did and didn't want to yell out to me because I looked like hell, who knows. LOL Finally the finish line came and the race was over with my final km split 4:40. I saw 23:37 on the clock and couldn't believe that after all of that suck I had managed to pull off a PB! Yay! Sarah & Mari waved to me and Mari yelled "I told you you'd get 22!". "I didn't" I yelled back and followed the crowd around the corner where my mouth was so dry that when I tried to spit I ended up with it all down myself. Twice. All of a sudden my tummy didn't feel well so I went over to the porta potties behind City Hall and vomited. Just like my teenage years! I felt a little better after that and turned to see Patty coming around the corner. "I just puked" I said to her. "Yeah, so did I" she said. We are so frickin' sexy! I went and grabbed some water and a couple of cookies which helped my tummy feel better (cookies make everything better) and went to find Sarah & Mari. I showed off the time on my Garmin while trying to not breath my barf breath in anyones face and then Patty &  Emma came and showed everyone that they had also gotten PB's too. Lucky Emma got hers without vomiting! We then went to find the posted results and saw that all three of us had placed third in our age groups! Yay us! I ended up getting second because the masters winner came out of my AG so that was an even bigger surprise. After we froze our butts off waiting for our awards (the girls got lawn ornaments, I got a backpack full of stuff that I already have LOL) we made our way back to our cars and said goodbye. I went home, got a high five from my husband who was sick in bed and went to sleep, only to wake up in the morning and realize that I didn't throw up from running the night before, I threw up because I had caught my coworkers stomach bug! BOO!

Photo courtesy of Patty.

Next up; this Saturday I am running the Georgina 10 miler with Patty to celebrate her birthday and then on Monday my half marathon training plan that Nicole has shared with me starts. I'm looking forward to the Daniels training plan that we will be following. It looks challenging so switching things up will be nice. Hopefully I'll be feeling better by then. Wish me luck!